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Summer 2008. Los Angeles. A period I remember mainly for the self-loathing, despair and crumbling relationships that I enjoyed on a daily basis. For all the work and sweat I had poured into my life up to that point, I felt like I just might have been the biggest smallest piece of shit in the world. I still can’t pinpoint exactly how it all began but something in me was starting to sense that it was entirely my fault. And it was eating me alive.

There are brief anecdotes I do recall from that time that were perhaps the effect of my psychological turmoil, rather than the cause.

Over the course of my time in LA, I had periodically volunteered at Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR). I thought it was pretty cool that I could walk a couple blocks, swing a cool right, sneak through the loading dock on the side street and see people like Dave Mustaine, Johnny Rotten, Paul Cook, Stevie Salas, and Jordin Sparks hanging out at any given time.

I told the daytime and nighttime staff that I was a recording student and wanted to intern. They were cool about it and let me hang around. This went on for two years but after a while, the action around SIR got a little dull. Nevertheless, I finally decided to ask about getting a real job there.

It was an uneventful day as usual but I still bided my time. By late afternoon, almost no one was around and I found myself alone on a couch. After considering my job-seeking intentions, I dropped everything and went home. I decided I was through pissing away my time at SIR and would find something better to do in its place.

About two weeks later, I got a call from my friend Enrique. I was recording his band at the time and so we hashed out some scheduling details. Soon after, we were shooting the shit.

Enrique: “I got a job now.”

Me: “Cool man! Where at?”

Enrique: “SIR on Sunset.”

Silence…

Me: “Oh cool. How’d you get that?”

Enrique: “I went in last week and applied for a job.”

Me: “Really…they had an opening?”

Enrique: “Yeah. I actually need to leave soon because I have to deliver some monitors to the El Rey for Jane’s Addiction’s reunion at the NME Awards tonight.

Me: “I see.”

Enrique: “Well I gotta go now but I will talk to you next week.”

Me: “Sounds good.”

Enrique: “Ok, bye.”

Me: “Bye.”

If I’ve ever had a moment where I wanted to travel back in time like Scrooge and punch my old self in the stomach, that would be it.

This was only the beginning of a long summer…a summer through which I would perpetually feel like a jackass.

Never too proud (probably one of my better qualities), I returned to SIR a few days later asking if there were any job openings. They told me they had just hired two people but that I could apply anyways. I did but they never called and that was the end of my SIR experience.

After two years of free help demonstrating my usefulness and general likeability, I had lost out. Who knew I was sitting right in front of an opportune time to ask for a job? Only hindsight gives us such clarity. However, personal experience has an incredible way of teaching us lessons. The lesson here is quite simple: seize the day and choke that bitch (just so we’re clear, “bitch” refers to “the day”).

It’s tempting to attribute the cause of someone’s success to something he or she possesses that we do not. We may never know the facts on these things but it is much easier to make this excuse than it is to admit to yourself that your failure is your own damn fault.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Think about all the things you do everyday that have good intentions. Got ‘em? Good, because…

Good intentions don’t mean shit.

Don’t. Mean. Shit.

If you miss the boat, it’s gone. Swallow your pride, learn well and recover. There will be more opportunities down the road as long as you can recognize them. When you do, you will have the slightest twinge of a déjà vu…a very painful déjà vu.

Hey, at least you’re not a fool anymore.

I had a recording instructor who turned down a job working with an up and coming band that was unknown at the time. That band turned out to be Fall Out Boy.

I also knew a front-of-house engineer at The Roxy who once said “[serendipitous] shit happens all the time.” That was how he got his job and for live sound, I thought he had a pretty sweet gig. He went on to do sound for Sick Puppies, Black Label Society and The Neighbourhood.

****

Everyone has either heard of, or personally experienced these types of things. Give me your most brutal/hilarious/awesome story below and we’ll see which one takes the cake!

This is one of my transcriptions from back in the day. It’s the two-handed tapping section of the guitar solo from “Get The Funk Out” by Extreme.

Looking back, I’m probably more proud of my hand notation and observance of musical nomenclature formalities than any of the actual transcription. Don’t get me wrong—you won’t find a more accurate transcription of this thing anywhere else (Hal Leonard Best Note-For-Note my ass).

The reason I share this with you is because it might be…too accurate.

Yes, dear reader, such a thing exists and has many forms: missing the forest for the trees, over-analysis, obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, infobesity, etc. As a former perpetrator, I hope to impart some life-lessonry here so that you too can save yourself from the perils of rock n’ roll ignorance.

About two years after I had penned this work, I tracked down/ambushed transcriber extraordinaire (and instructor par excellence) Dale Turner in the illustrious hallways of Musicians Institute and handed him a copy.

After three seconds of applying his music speed-reading powers, Dale said, “It’s good except for this one note.”

Not sure of which I found more shocking, the man’s alien precision or the wrong note, I decided to have a closer look.

“On the second staff here. That ‘D’ should be a ‘G’,” he indicated. I instantly knew where he was looking. It was a note I remembered because it oddly broke out of a fast repeating pattern for no special reason. It probably wasn’t even intentional but it made the record and I caught the bastard.

“I slowed the CD down and the ‘D’ is what I heard,” I responded, to which Dale then offered this pearl of wisdom:

“The point is to show what he intended to play.”

I’ll admit this didn’t exactly sink in at first. However, it eventually became a reminder for me not to lose sight of the big picture ever again.

I developed a periodic habit of dropping trivial details and asking myself what I really wanted whenever I faced important life or career decisions. In modern society, we get caught up in so much day-to-day bullshit that we constantly forget why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place.

Sometimes you need to impose reality checks on yourself. It takes less than 5 minutes and you don’t need to go out and dodge oncoming traffic during rush hour either.

I’m calling it the Existential Crisis Protocol, or ECP.

I find it effective to perform this procedure every so often but others might need to do this multiple times a day at first. We will use the abbreviated version here. Begin by asking yourself this question:

“Am I happy?”

If your answer is yes, then carry on with your supercalifragilistic day. If your answer is no, then proceed with the protocol:

1. What do I really want out of my life?

If what you want is to be happy, that’s a good starting point. It may seem overly simplistic but it’s still important to realize. Happiness is a discipline and it does take effort so you’d be wise to practice this by working on things that actually mean something you.

Also, the reason I don’t like to follow up the preliminary “am I happy” question with “why am I not happy” is that many people don’t actually know why they are unhappy. Usually, they are just unfulfilled or doing work they are not passionate about.

Using myself as an example, here’s how I have answered this question many times: I want to play my music around the world.

Playing, writing and recording music is fulfilling work for me. I identify music as a personal success that brings me joy. But the zenith, or ultimate form of this to me, is playing songs I wrote in a band for people across the globe.

The key is to find something that would represent the funnest version of whatever ambitions you have, no matter how lofty it might seem. If you are having trouble, slap yourself (tears help) and then read this article.

2. What am I currently doing to progress towards this goal or fulfilling life?

Make two lists: One for goal-supporting activities and one for goal-destroying activities. This can be tricky if you’ve been deluded into thinking things like being a professional musician requires knowledge of every scale ever invented.

I’m not saying it’s okay to just skim the lake all the time; I still enjoy delving deep into a subject and absorbing every detail. However, this habit can lead to procrastination, analysis paralysis or information overload, i.e. you ain’t gettin’ shit done. Be brutally honest as you write.

Me:

Goal-Supporting

Writing my songs

Recording my songs

Playing shows with my band

Interning at XYZ recording studio

Goal-Destroying

Practicing scales 8 hours everyday

Jamming (aimlessly) with so-and-so “to be nice”

Reading redundant “how to” articles

Dicking around on Facebook

Complaining

3. Eliminate.

When you finish writing, look over your goal-destroying list and eliminate or reduce these activities as much as possible. For jobs and other obligations that may not directly support your ambitions but are necessary for your food & shelter needs, let them stand (unless you can do better).

You might be surprised to find your goal-destroying list is longer than your goal-supporting list. This is to put things in perspective for you. How much time are you really putting into your aspirations?

****

Once I started trimming the fat off my personal and professional responsibilities, my actions began to align with my goals. The result? I progressed much faster and became more efficient with my time.

I know what it’s like to pour all your energy into one thing…even if that one thing is just a freakin’ sixteenth note. It’s fun to woodshed for hours. You’ll probably learn something too (bring a flashlight cuz it gets dark PDQ).

Lesson If you wanna hit the shed, cool, but one thing: don’t forget how beautiful it is outside.

Earlier, hashed-out version of my transcription

Transcribing the drums was much easier. Before I knew what to call the hi-hat, I went with “tsuss-ssiti” to denote the sound a hi-hat makes in a disco beat.

You could say I had a little preoccupation in my late teens. Looking through my old practice logs I’m amazed I actually finished high school. I am also amazed I didn’t lose my mind while tracking progress for about 70 licks and their variations right down to the beats per minute. If you saw the sh*t I wrote, you would likely wonder the same.

Fortunately, I have learned a few things since my teenage speed crusade. One of those things involves a device that’s popular with guitarists (read: shredders) worldwide:metronomes.

First of all, this is not another rant about metronomes (Zzzz) but rather an observation about my own playing (particularlyalternate picking) I made a few years back. Also, I believe the element of speed in music is, just like everything else, a tool that can be manipulated to create excitement. Slow and fast playing is just like different colors on a painter’s palette; they are used to stir up certain emotions. That being said, there are many guitarists who want to develop their speed but cannot seem to break past a certain point. If you’re a speed-seeking missile who has slaved away on every shred routine in every guitar magazine to no avail, read on.

In the realm of lead guitar, metronomes are great for pretty much one thing and that’s mastering the mechanics of a technique or lick at any speed. Start at a slow bpm and gradually increase the tempo until you sound like the record. This is generally how shredders get fast.

After using this approach for a few years, I eventually moved to Los Angeles and got heavy into…wait for it…nope, not that…not that either…ready? Songwriting. I got a small Pro Tools rig and spent many hours writing and recording songs. I also started watching other guitar players in town. My friend Dave and I would go see guys like Jason Hook (pre-Five Finger Death Punch) and Phil X (pre-Fretted Americana) perform at small clubs in Hollywood. This was huge. Seeing dudes who played rock n’ roll just peeling off these super fast licks from 10 feet away was very inspiring.

It was about two years since I had done any serious technique practice, let alone with a metronome. Apparently, none of that mattered because I started picking faster. Way faster. This also came at a time when I began to overcome the social stigma of playing fast licks onstage. Every new band I was in gave me the experience to go further and further with my lead work. Outshine the other guitar player? Check. Keep up with the drummer while picking the keyboard solo to “Highway Star?” Check. Going for 32nd notes during a solo in an acoustic shuffle that I had absolutely no business playing? Check freakin’ mate. These things forced me to play faster but I can honestly say it all started with the visualization that it could actually be done.

I won’t delve into the metaphysical here but visualization can be a powerful tool. For the reader, the only requirement I will add to this practice is that what you visualize should be fueled by inspiration. Inspiration makes everything easier and in this case, it will have a greater impact on how you internalize and manifest the characteristics you desire.

Now, data that you can measure is certainly helpful for seeing your progress. Metronomes and bpm’s have their place but they just don’t tap a raw nerve. The key to breaking through your speed plateau is actually in your head. It’s deep down in your amygdala, screaming for attention…

Time to meet your speed-ego.

A carefully developed relationship with your inner speed racer can skyrocket you through subconscious limitations you may have imposed on yourself over years of growing up.

Numbers and other musical minutiae won’t help.

You need to get pissed.

While you’re at it, start combining synergistic behaviors. As I mentioned in a previous post entitled “Destroy Your Heroes,” you will never play exactly like your idols. This should excite you. Dig into all your little playing eccentricities and embrace your unique coolness. These things will grow with you the longer you play. Even after playing guitar for more than half my life, I continue to evolve. It’s like my fingers are constantly looking for new ways to play the damn thing. I believe that allowing myself to be comfortable in my own skin additionally helped me to tap into my speed-ego, or speego, if you will.

You can do the same. Speed doesn’t care who chooses to harness its glorious power. If you want speed then you must get out of your own way and choose it. Don’t ask for it or hope a metronome will take you the entire way. At some point, you will have to assume the mentality and identity of a guitar player who does play fast (while developing other important musical skills as well). Just like bending strings, playing fast guitar licks is just another tool that can be veiled, or unleashed, at your disposal.

***

Below is a lick that changed the course of my lead playing forever. It’s Paul Gilbert’s famous “outside picking” triplet lick on the top two strings from his first Intense Rock video. Try it out but remember, playing it with attitude will increase its benefits twofold.

Winter. I’m not big on it. If you play any instrument that involves dexterous finger work you probably aren’t much big on it either. How many times have you started playing a fast riff or lick onstage and quickly realized your fingers weren’t moving as fast as your brain?

Up here in the Northeast and elsewhere in the world, winter temperatures can last over half the year. When people watch you play, they expect it to be good—every time. No one grants mercy points for cold hands. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I had a few tricks up my sleeve for old man winter. Use these tips for effectively (and cheaply) keeping yer digits warm and ready for fast action:

Wear gloves. Not to state the obvious, but it’s so simple and brilliant that it’s hilarious how so many of us forget (or refuse) to do it when driving to a rehearsal or show. Once I got over myself feeling like a dweeb wearing them to gigs, I stapled each glove to my jacket sleeves and—just kidding…but I do keep a pair stuffed in the pockets after reaping the benefits so many times.

Air squats. Yup. These are gonna ramp up circulation all over. If your body is cold, how can you expect your fingers to warm up? Forget jumping jacks; you need a bigger burn and squats will increase your body temperature faster. If you’re new to squats,watch this. Do 50 reps or squat at a medium tempo for 60-90 seconds. Then do these…

Push-ups. No, this isn’t supposed to be boot camp but sometimes you gotta just go with what works. To learn a proper push-up form,go here. If you can force yourself to squeeze out even 20 or 30 reps in a row you will start feeling some serious heat especially if you perform these right after the squats.

Windmills. Now it’s time to get some of that blood moving to your fingers. For this, I know of no better method than swinging your arms in big circles not unlike Pete Townshend’s famouswindmill strumming move. Guitar not required.

Ginger tea. Fill a small pot with 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Get a thumb-sized chunk of fresh ginger root and cut it into thin slices. Add the slices to the boiling water and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Next, pour the water into a teapot and serve. Squeeze in some lemon juice and sweeten with honey, maple syrup or agave nectar. Careful, it’s a strong brew—prepare for a ginger “kick” in the back of your throat. This potent, thermogenic concoction will increase blood flow to extremities as ginger’s circulation-boosting properties can create a full-body warming effect.

Jante’s Law is defined as a pattern of group behavior that discourages any person’s individual success and achievement within a community. The law can be broken down into ten rules:

Don’t think you’re anything special

Don’t think you’re as good as us

Don’t think you’re smarter than us

Don’t convince yourself that you’re better than us

Don’t think you know more than us

Don’t think you are more important than us

Don’t think you are good at anything

Don’t laugh at us

Don’t think anyone cares about you

Don’t think you can teach us anything

Oh and there’s also this cheery unwritten one:

11. Don’t think there aren’t a few things we know about you

I definitely know some people who follow these rules to a T. Do you?

Whether or not they even realize it, many folks subscribe to this philosophy in usually one of two ways: They have either developed a fear of rising above their peers and consequently being cut down or they are just a jealous prick.

If you haven’t already noticed, this fear-based mentality crops up a lot in local music scenes everywhere. A jaded old-timer rambles off why the music industry is a trap to an enthusiastic newcomer who didn’t ask for his opinion. “It’s all about the money,” he wheezes. Hmmm…

Tell me one industry that isn’t about the money or one industry that isn’t corrupt. If you’re looking for a place you can do work that every single person will love and want to pay you for out of total fairness, you’re on the wrong planet.

These “well-meaning” characters also seem to be the ones complaining about the down economy, job security, music these days, kids these days and well, you get the point. They are emotional vampires and will suck every last bit of life out of anyone who sticks around long enough to hear about their crappy life. If you get only one thing from this post, let it be this: you need to sweep that garbage to the curb.

What a lot of folks don’t realize is that there are many ways to make a living in the music biz, no matter how big or small. You can find a whole community of professional musicians especially in popular US music industry cities like Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville. They wear many “hats” when it comes to making a living as a guitarist, bassist, drummer, etc. Since they are actually the ones in the industry, wouldn’t it make sense to ask them for advice?

We’ve all heard the stories of bands and artists getting ripped off by their record company or dropped three weeks after they’re signed. These are the stories that permeate our culture and scare us into thinking we should stick with a “safe” or respectable career and do music on the side. Hey, don’t get me wrong—some folks have different aspirations outside of music and that’s cool. What isn’t cool is people’s propensity for giving me advice on why a career in music is unrealistic.

But hey, that’s people. If anything, their efforts to discourage or criticize me are boring and predictable. Actually, it seems like the only way to achieve success anywhere involves others getting in their shot at you while you continue to put out new music, play shows or even write a blog entry.

It’s like a bucket of crabs: if one crab tries to escape, the other crabs pull it back down. That’s called crab mentality but it’s not just reserved for crabs as you can witness almost every other day. When you encounter Jante’s Law, or Janteloven (its Scandinavian translation), realize that the only reason others are trying to bring you down is because you are already above them.

Janteloven is simply a set of rules that others expect you to follow. And screw that. It’s time to create your own “Musicloven,” a set of rules that you subscribe to in your musical journey. Try these:

I am special

I am as good as anybody else

I am smarter than others think I am

I am going to do better than expected of me

I know more than others think I do

I am the only person who can do exactly what I do

I am good at what I do

I can laugh at my own mistakes

Others do want me to succeed

Others can learn something from me (and I from them)

I will surprise others

***

So where do you stand in all this? Are you proactive in building a foundation for a career in music and have your own Musicloven rule to add below?

One problem, or perhaps excuse, I have often heard from many a musician who profess the desire to write songs is that their efforts always ends up sounding like their favorite bands or artists. I chalk this up to creative growing pains because as derivative as you think you are, you’ll never play, write or peel a potato like your idols. And that’s a good thing. Here’s why:

Every single person on the planet is constantly influenced by everything around him or her whether or not they know it, or admit it. The same applies to music. I owe a lot of the musical preferences (that I’m aware of) to radio and that’s something many people can relate to.

As a guitar player, I wouldn’t have made much progress if it weren’t for the work of others who came long before I did. But whether you’re a modest fan or you like to wear your influences on your sleeve (literally), don’t act like you have none. That’s just being a douche. Douches have no friends because nobody likes douches except pussies…

I remember once in the studio, my friend asked the band’s guitarist what his influences were and the guy actually said he had none but that he listened to a lot of classical music. I’d like to include that this guitarist’s music had to have been the freaking encyclopedia of lead guitar licks featuring a veritable crap-ton of sweep-picked arpeggios.

Now regardless of what this guitarist might have thought in his head, he was not the first guy to do these things. But that’s okay! We’re all products of our time. What makes you a douche and sets off everyone’s BS meter is if you deny that simple reality. So get that straight first and instantly feel the self-imposed burden of hyper-originality evaporate.

You only get better at things you spend most of your time on. If you only write music when you get “inspired,” you will probably not get any better anytime soon. If the song you’re writing sounds like a bad Tool cover then you are merely experiencing some “growing pains” in your writing journey that you will eventually outgrow (sooner than you think). Finish the song and move on to the next one.

While I do think it is good exercise for your songwriting muscles and creativity, constantly trying to avoid sounding like an influence can seriously derail the progress of a song, especially for a beginner. You are what you eat musically. Recognize it. Embrace it. If you can’t respect your own musical personality, who will?

Some songwriters just starting out are scared of plagiarizing a known artist but unless that is your goal, it actually becomes very hard to do (especially for an entire song) once you’ve been writing for a while (and a “while” could mean weeks, months or years depending on how often you write). Obviously you don’t want to just rip off someone else’s work but after the first few times you get stuck with a similar sounding riff (it’s gonna happen) you’ll start to develop your own rules for dealing with this.

Let’s say you write a new riff on the guitar but it reminds you of your favorite Aerosmith, Danzig or Huey Lewis (I couldn’t resist) riff. You want to be original so you alter your riff so much that you only succeed in ruining it. Follow my personal protocol for overcoming this common quandary:

1. Tweak your riff for 1 hour (2 if yer green) to see if you can find a more unique version that you actually like better than your original riff AND the famous riff you’re trying to avoid copying. You might be surprised at what you come up with. But if you can’t find anything better…

2. Replace your original riff with the famous riff and if the famous riff just feels the best for that section of the song then just go with it and look for ways to disguise it. But I’m not talking about the riff itself. Just the addition of adjacent sections and vocal rhythms/melodies can effectively disguise a famous-sounding riff in your song. Recording yourself (which I strongly recommend anyways) will instantly make this apparent.

If you want to get better (and more unique) in your songwriting, you’ve got to write. You’ll start many songs and probably finish less but it is important that you do finish as many songs as you can. This takes discipline but it will teach you form and presentation as well as help you develop a style. Otherwise all you’ll have are riffs and ideas. You need to complete whole songs to grow as an artist.

Songwriting gives you the chance to perfectly express how you feel in ways only music can convey. Even if you fear sounding like your influences, as long as you consistently write music from your gut, you’ll increasingly notice how much you sound like, well, yourself.

Remember, it’s not just musical influences that appear in your songs. It’s every place you’ve been, every person you’ve met, every dream or fear you’ve ever had. There’s simply nobody else who can make music like you.

Remember back in elementary school when your cafeteria, auditorium and gymnasium were all in the same room? Yeah…the all-purpose room. Depending on the time of day that room got used for everything from pizza to dodgeball to latchkey to the sock hop. You could say the room had a few modes…

In music, the major scale is like an all-purpose room. We use that freakin’ thing to make many different sounds and emotions. It is the basis for everything ever created in western music. Yer good ol’ fashioned C major scale has seven notes and thus, seven chords. This is what those chords look like in order:

C maj

D min

E min

F maj

G maj

A min

B dim

I

ii

iii

IV

V

vi

vii˚

…and if you wrote a progression with these chords that went…

C maj/A min/D min/G maj (I/vi/ii/V)

…you would have yourself a tidy little progression in the key of C major. Play through this progression and your ears will easily hear the C major chord as “home.”

That’s just chord chemistry—it’s been working the same way for centuries. Don’t question it. Don’t ask why. Just accept it and internalize it. Finished internalizing yet? Ok good. Moving on…

Now, let’s say you want to put a wonderfully self-gratuitous solo over this progression. You already know that the key is C major so what better scale to use than a C major scale? This scale will work perfectly over all four chords. Why? It works because all these chords are related in the key of C major (also said to be diatonic to C major).

So remember how we said the major scale is an all-purpose room for different uses? Well when you play a C major scale over the C major chord in your progression, that scale is functioning in the C Ionian mode because Ionian is the traditional pure major mode. But over the A minor chord, that very same scale will then function in the A Aeolian mode. Over the D minor chord it will be in the mode of D Dorian and over the G major chord it will be in G Mixolydian.

If your brain is starting to overheat at this point, take a moment to cool down. You also might be asking yourself “Ok but why complicate life with these ricockulous Greek words?”

Think about it this way: If you could get away with playing one scale over four chords instead of four scales over four chords, life would be a heck of a lot easier, right? Hell yes. Not only does it require excessive thinking, changing scales every time there is a diatonic chord change will actually obscure the key center “home base” (in this case C major). An experienced improviser will recognize that all the chords in the progression are diatonic to C major. Therefore, he or she will use the C major scale to play over all four chords (knowing that as each chord changes, the scale will be functioning in a different mode).

In this progression, the C major scale (like an all-purpose room) changes its function constantly. The modes it functions in can even be compared to the different uses of a real all-purpose room; we’ll call Ionian pizza, Aeolian dodgeball, Dorian latchkey and Mixolydian sock hop.

Now before you go off improvising in the ancient and glorious mode of C Pizza, realize that the real power of modes is in knowing how to make your scale choices and ensuing improvisation most efficient. Learn to analyze chord progressions so that you can spot chords diatonic or native to the same key. For many songs, most of the chords will be in the same key. For these chords you would use the same scale for soloing.

Here’s the complete order of modes over their corresponding chord in any given major key:

Ionian

Dorian

Phrygian

Lydian

Mixolydian

Aeolian

Locrian

I

ii

iii

IV

V

vi

vii˚

Using the chords from our nifty progression above:

C maj is the I chord and so the C major scale functions in C Ionian mode when played over it.

A min is the vi chord and so the C major scale functions in A Aeolian mode when played over it.

D min is the ii chord and so the C major scale functions in D Dorian mode when played over it.

G maj is the V chord and so the C major scale functions in G Mixolydian mode when played over it.

Here’s a different progression:

C maj/E min/F maj/G maj (I/iii/IV/V)

Our ears and knowledge of key centers and modes tells us that this progression is in C major and all the chords are diatonic to C major. This means we can use a C major scale to blaze over this one too (it’s a very straight-laced ditty so blaze gently).

The C major scale you play will change modes with every chord change starting in C Ionian and going into E Phrygian then F Lydian and finally G Mixolydian…or G sock hop if you prefer.

So the next time you see a progression, analyze the chords to determine:

1) The key and I chord of the progression

2) For all the chords diatonic to this key, use the scale based on that key/I chord (like the C major scale for a C major progression).

That’s how you use modes. If you are utterly perplexed by this information, reach out and ask for help in the comments section. If you got this stuff down, don’t worry; this is only the beginning. So until next time, grab your favorite instrument and make some beautiful music.